Ask Elisha - My Alcohol Reduction Story
I was never a big drinker as a young adult. I could easily say no and not feel left out or any amount of peer pressure. It wasn’t until after I had my kids that I turned to alcohol …
For most of my life, I’ve dealt with anxiety which escalated quite significantly after my kids were born. A few years post-partum and I got into a habit of saying goodnight to my kids, then I’d walk straight to the kitchen to pour myself a vodka, lime & soda. It was a form of escapism - a way to tame my irrational thoughts and try to relax, then my husband was diagnosed with cancer. Our kids were 5 and 2 years old.
Whilst Simon (my husband) enjoyed a drink before his diagnosis, his consumption certainly increased after this and for good reason - his mindset and perspective had completely changed. Within what felt like the blink of an eye, he was thrust into the realisation that life is short and as such, wanted to enjoy the rest of his days. Of course, the reality of living that kind of YOLO lifestyle caught up to him and he is currently battling his own demons with alcohol; however it was at this stage that my own drinking habits became unhealthy, to the point where I was drinking every night.
Fast forward to a few years of daily drinking and I began to experience lots of physical symptoms - weight gain, inflammation, severe/ painful bloating and excessive mucus in my stools. These symptoms prompted a microbiome test which came back showing elevated Zonulin levels (commonly associated with Leaky Gut Syndrome), plus an undergrowth of beneficial gut bacteria. If you’re unfamiliar with Leaky Gut, it’s essentially when your intestinal wall becomes permeable and therefore allows bacteria, toxins and pathogens to enter your bloodstream and can cause all sorts of horrible symptoms, illnesses and diseases. Think of your gut lining as a tight mesh, mine had become a loose mesh due to my lifestyle choices.
My diet outside of alcohol is healthy - I am a Nutrition Coach and wholeheartedly, practice what I preach. I consume balanced meals, drink lots of water, focus on eating mostly whole foods and prioritise quality ingredients - my alcohol consumption was the only negative. In saying this though, it didn’t matter what I was eating, I could have eaten a huge protein-packed, green salad every meal but my body wasn’t absorbing the nutrients as effectively as it should have been which resulted in nutrient deficiency as well.
Physical symptoms aside, sleep was becoming a problem too big to ignore. I’d wake most nights at 3am and lie awake the rest of the night because I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I now know that this happens as a result of the “Rebound Effect” and is common in those who drink alcohol - the nervous system essentially ‘rebounds’ from the depressive effects of alcohol. This happens when alcohol starts to leave the body and the body attempts to return to homeostasis. To do this, there is an overexaggerated spike in the awakening hormone cortisol, which usually rises naturally around 3am.
The Turning Point
I made the decision approx. 12 months ago that I needed to change after one too many nights where Simon would walk past me in the lounge and I’d be passed out on the couch, with a full glass of red wine still in my hand. Yes, it was likely mental and physical exhaustion given my job is both mentally and physically demanding however the alcohol didn’t help. Simon began taking photos of me too. He has countless photos on his phone and I despise them because what stared out as harmless, cute photos of me constantly falling asleep on the couch, was so much more than that - I knew I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I was passed out due to how much I had drank that night.
Alcohol often causes more pain than good and the reality of this was sinking in. The turning point however was a process. I truly believe that just as the person drinking feels like they may have no control over the problem, as a friend/ loved one, you also have no control over them changing. They almost need to be hurt enough to want to change. By this point, I had hit my version of rock bottom enough times to want to change - I was tired of my own shit, tried of my re-occurring excuses and the blatant lies I was telling myself. I eventually surrendered to the problem which meant opening up, telling loved ones the truth and surrounding myself with a support system of close family and friends.
As I’m documenting and typing this out, I do recall another mindset shift happening as a result of an article I read about addiction and the link between addiction and a persons belief systems. The article was written about a program that was changing the belief systems of smokers in an effort to help them quit smoking. Surprisingly, the program had a 92.5% success rate simply by getting the person to believe that stopping smoking was going to be easy. It wasn’t that quitting smoking was easy, the person just believed they could overcome their habit and therefore they put in the effort to stop. People will stop addictive habits when they put in the effort to stop and they will only put in the effort once they BELIEVE they can stop.
We all know someone who smokes, someone who used to smoke and someone who doesn’t smoke. The difference between the person who still smokes and those who don’t, is the person who smokes BELIEVES they are addicted to nicotine. The reason smokers find it hard to quit is because they BELIEVE it is going to be really hard because they BELIEVE they are addicted. Ex-smokers who believed that smoking was just a habit (that they therefore had control over) stopped smoking easily without any side effects or cravings. Smokers who BELIEVE that smoking is an addiction find it difficult to stop and they are the ones that suffer cravings and withdrawal symptoms. As I was reading this article, I recall telling myself and others, that I felt addicted to drinking, that I had zero control and that the alcohol had control over me. These thoughts, were reaffirming that I didn’t believe it was possible for me to change because I was powerless and had zero control over it. So, I got to work on changing my beliefs about alcohol and it’s power over me.
There were two strategies I used to successfully reduce my alcohol consumption -
Replace The Habit
Whilst studying to become a Nutrition Coach, I listened to a lecture by Mehmet Oz which delved into the science behind why you can't get rid of a bad habit, you have to replace a bad habit.
In his expert opinion, the key to replacing a habit long-term is to continue modifying the unhealthy habit until you are at a place where you are happy, accepting and satisfied with the new habit. This is where most people come unstuck. In order to break a habit, you need to give the modified habit at least 2 weeks to work its magic (I have since read studies that show that deeply engrained habits - ones that you may have had for years can take up to 60 days to crack).
Sticking with Mehmets recommendation of 2 weeks (for ease of explaining this concept) - if you find that you’re still struggling after 2 weeks, then you need to change tactics and admit that perhaps you were too strict with how you tried to modify the unhealthy habit in the first place. From my experience working with women, I’ve found the smallest change at first gets the best results - eg. if you're trying to break a habit of drinking after dinner by replacing it with something other than drinking, like a warm bath, the chance of you breaking this habit is slim to none. The goal should always be, as it is with any personal transformation, to aim for a very small improvement either by doing something 10% less or choosing something 10% healthier and keep tweaking this new habit by 10% each time. Jump too quickly and there’s a great chance that you’ll end up right where you started.
To replace a habit of drinking after dinner, this might look like -
Reducing to a half nip of vodka and/or half glasses of wine for a few weeks then;
Having 1 glass of alcoholic wine instead of your usual 2 or 3 (the other glasses might be an alcohol-free wine) then;
Switching all glasses of wine to be alcohol-free (at this stage, you’re still doing the habit of drinking but the drink itself is gradually changing to support the new, desired habit) then;
Once you’ve been drinking alcohol-free wine for a few weeks, perhaps aim to change the habit of drinking to something else …
Change Your Environment
If you’re wanting to change a habit to something else completely, once you’ve slowly replaced the habit using the steps above, then look at changing your environment. For me, this looked like replacing the need to drink altogether after dinner with a night-time walk instead. For you, it might be a bath, a book, a phone call with a friend, sex with your partner, painting and getting creative etc. Something else I did to change my environment was committing to Parkrun every Saturday. Knowing I had somewhere to be and something active to do at 7am on a Saturday morning, also reduced the want to drink as much on a Friday Night. So, ask yourself - how can you change your environment to support the new, desired habit?
At the time of writing this article, I still allow myself to have a couple of drinks on a Friday & Saturday Night, however the less I drink, the more I’m realising that even a couple of drinks is enough to make me feel average. Instead, I’m leaning more towards having a drink with dinner and then I’ll often move onto a warm drink afterwards which usually stops any further cravings for alcohol. Alcohol is a habit that most people struggle to find balance with (myself included), but I also want to be a realist. For me, I do not want or feel the need to be completely sober so trying to navigate what that looks like and how to achieve that long-term is something I’ve been consciously working on these last few months.
Have a question you’d like some help with? Please get in touch either here, by email (elisha@feelbelook.com) or DM me over on Insta @feelbelook.
Next month I’ll be offering advice on when to progress your workouts x